Recommendation: If you are free of nut-allergies, buy two handfuls of almonds and soak them overnight in a jar of water. Rinse the next day. Also, cut up some fresh ginger root, bring to a boil, and simmer for at least 30 minutes, longer if you have time. Then pour the ginger water on top of the almonds in a blender (the ratio should be 3:1 almonds:H2O) and blend until the almonds are chopped up entirely and the liquid is white. Strain out the almond and ginger remains and mix with dried fruit and nut-butter, honey, spirulina and flax and whatever else you want to include and roll into balls. Then use the almond-ginger milk as a milk substitute and tasty beverage, especially with a bag of tea and some raw honey, hot.
Yes friends, life is wonderful here. As intense as I can stand, but truly transformative. I am learning so much and doing so much that I won't have time to absorb much until I leave, (please don't ask what I plan to do when I leave. The only definite plan is Italy in September, but beyond and before that I really can't say, and will tell you when I know.)
Beyond the information that I'm collecting-which is too much for me to continue writing in detail-some highlights include:
A pool and a hot-tub that we can use anytime, especially popular on the way home from work and at dusk when the stars begin to appear.
Free tinctures
An amusing and loveable farm crew
A bond that will be difficult to part from. Our group lives as an organism, each of us an organ within the whole. When one of us isn't feeling well, the rest of us feel it. It has been a great lesson to learn to maintain my own well-being amongst so many other moods.
Unbelievably beautiful bike rides-including a 40 minute ride home in the dark with just 2 headlights for 4 people. The roads are so empty that we didn't have to worry about traffic, and all that could be seen were the stars up ahead and the light in the distance, following the silhouette of the person in front. It was magical.
Hope your list of good-things is just as long!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Another week over
Yesterday was phenomenal. The work week was over after being briefer and easier than the previous one because I played housekeeper ("Hazel") on Monday, cooking and cleaning for everyone while they were at work, and on Tuesday and Thursday I spent the mornings thinning baby plants in the greenhouses. Tuesday evening's class was questionable, but Thursday we had a 3 hour Ayurveda class that I could have sat in for another three, (for those of you who have witnessed my struggle in trying to identify my Dosha, I am conclusively Pitta-Vata. I can't wait til next week when we start to learn about herbs for different constitutions. I also get to pick the teacher's brain at work because he does landscaping and I will be on his crew all week.)
And then Friday rolled around, and we all lazily rolled out of bed an hour later than usual and migrated over to the "Plant plant" (we live on the "Pharm farm") for Dagmar's nutrition class. Some things we learned:
-Eat vitamine B daily because it is water soluble and therefore gets flushed through your system quickly.
-To reduce arterial plaque/risk of heart-attack eat:
-Eat an anti-inflammatory diet (discribed below)
-Vitamin B, C, K2, omega-3 fatty acids
-Triphala (has the highest content of vitamine C; is a liver, gut, and blood cleanser; balances your bio-burden; and regulates bowels. Take a spoonful in some juice.)
-Garlic (Superfood in any condition)
-Natto (fermented soy, doesn't look appealing but is apparently very tasty. Eat raw.)
-Hibiscus tea (inhibits oxidation of LDL)
-Sugar Cane Extract, "policosanol," is an excellent alternative to cholesterol-reducing drugs that tend to do more harm than good. *Switch medication only under a doctor's supervision!!!!
-To treat high blood pressure eat chocolate, celery, and fermente foods such as miso, wine, cheese, and herring.
The Anti-Inflammatory Diet:
-Omega-3 fatty acids (oily fish, walnuts, flax, pumpkin seeds)
-Olive oil
-Game; Organic free-range or grass-fed beef (This is healthy meat. What's unhealthy for both you and the animal is when they are grain-fed and cooped up in stalls so their muscles don't harden, causing their meat to be rich in omega-6 rather than 3. Red meat being unhealthy is therefore a myth, it depends on where it's coming from)
-Whole, unproessed grains (most of the good stuff is in the shell), vegetables, fruit
-Raw, boiled, or steamed food (fried only on occasions when your body is craving it)
-Herbs: Willowbark, feverfew, boswellia, and other anti-inflammatory herbs
Depression and insomnia:
-Can be indicative of insufficient amino acids, diets with too little protein.
-Treated with whoe organic food, essential fatty acids and vitamin B's from grain and liver (my liverwurst obsession as a child shows that I was craving those), Magnesium from green foods, dairy, meat, seeds, apple cider vinegar, turmeric, green tea, ginger, rosemary, pineapple, Frankincense.
-Herbs: St. John's Wort (NOT if you're on oral contraceptives or other hormonal treatment; for the first month take a dropper-full every hour. After that your body will forever be familiar with it and will only need to be given a couple droppers 2-3 times a day, even if you haven't taken it in years), Rhodiola (EXCELLENT anti-anxiety herb,) Cat's Claw, White Willow, Arnica, Licorice (Don't take licorice for more than 12 weeks).
Insomnia:
-Exercise wil help
-Herbs: Kava, St. Jon's Wort, Rhodiola, Ashwaganda
-Sunlight is extremely important for vitamin D. Go outside for half an hour every day WITHOUT sunblock to absorb vitamin D. When you start getting pink put on the sunblock. Cancer develops when you get burned because it melts the fat under the skin in which many toxins are stored, not because the sun is inherently evil.
After that class we had another that tought us how to analyze tongues, and then we all got dressed up and went to dance our booties off at a local bluegrass show. It was soooooooo much fun.
And now it's time to enjoy the weekend and make some tinctures.
I hope you enjoy yours too!
And then Friday rolled around, and we all lazily rolled out of bed an hour later than usual and migrated over to the "Plant plant" (we live on the "Pharm farm") for Dagmar's nutrition class. Some things we learned:
-Eat vitamine B daily because it is water soluble and therefore gets flushed through your system quickly.
-To reduce arterial plaque/risk of heart-attack eat:
-Eat an anti-inflammatory diet (discribed below)
-Vitamin B, C, K2, omega-3 fatty acids
-Triphala (has the highest content of vitamine C; is a liver, gut, and blood cleanser; balances your bio-burden; and regulates bowels. Take a spoonful in some juice.)
-Garlic (Superfood in any condition)
-Natto (fermented soy, doesn't look appealing but is apparently very tasty. Eat raw.)
-Hibiscus tea (inhibits oxidation of LDL)
-Sugar Cane Extract, "policosanol," is an excellent alternative to cholesterol-reducing drugs that tend to do more harm than good. *Switch medication only under a doctor's supervision!!!!
-To treat high blood pressure eat chocolate, celery, and fermente foods such as miso, wine, cheese, and herring.
The Anti-Inflammatory Diet:
-Omega-3 fatty acids (oily fish, walnuts, flax, pumpkin seeds)
-Olive oil
-Game; Organic free-range or grass-fed beef (This is healthy meat. What's unhealthy for both you and the animal is when they are grain-fed and cooped up in stalls so their muscles don't harden, causing their meat to be rich in omega-6 rather than 3. Red meat being unhealthy is therefore a myth, it depends on where it's coming from)
-Whole, unproessed grains (most of the good stuff is in the shell), vegetables, fruit
-Raw, boiled, or steamed food (fried only on occasions when your body is craving it)
-Herbs: Willowbark, feverfew, boswellia, and other anti-inflammatory herbs
Depression and insomnia:
-Can be indicative of insufficient amino acids, diets with too little protein.
-Treated with whoe organic food, essential fatty acids and vitamin B's from grain and liver (my liverwurst obsession as a child shows that I was craving those), Magnesium from green foods, dairy, meat, seeds, apple cider vinegar, turmeric, green tea, ginger, rosemary, pineapple, Frankincense.
-Herbs: St. John's Wort (NOT if you're on oral contraceptives or other hormonal treatment; for the first month take a dropper-full every hour. After that your body will forever be familiar with it and will only need to be given a couple droppers 2-3 times a day, even if you haven't taken it in years), Rhodiola (EXCELLENT anti-anxiety herb,) Cat's Claw, White Willow, Arnica, Licorice (Don't take licorice for more than 12 weeks).
Insomnia:
-Exercise wil help
-Herbs: Kava, St. Jon's Wort, Rhodiola, Ashwaganda
-Sunlight is extremely important for vitamin D. Go outside for half an hour every day WITHOUT sunblock to absorb vitamin D. When you start getting pink put on the sunblock. Cancer develops when you get burned because it melts the fat under the skin in which many toxins are stored, not because the sun is inherently evil.
After that class we had another that tought us how to analyze tongues, and then we all got dressed up and went to dance our booties off at a local bluegrass show. It was soooooooo much fun.
And now it's time to enjoy the weekend and make some tinctures.
I hope you enjoy yours too!
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Herb Pharm: Week Two
I woke up this morning at 7:30 feeling fully rested. Climbing out of the top bunk is still an adventure, even after a week and a half. I made it down safely after concluding that going down backwards like my father taught me years ago is, in fact, the wisest technique for this endeavor. Directly out of the window from my bed I can see trees and some sky, but when I walked up closer I was forced to pause by the mountains in the sunlight. The lowest trees at the base of the closest mountains glowed deep yellow, turning dark green further up at their still-shady tops, against a backdrop of further mountains wearing snowy crowns. But no matter how poetically I attempt to describe the landscape my words cannot come close to the beauty of this farm. And the longer I stay, the more beautiful it seems to become.
I spent the whole week hoeing: Echinacea the first two days, Motherwart at the end of the second day, and a field full of baby nettles at the end of the third to the end of the fourth day. I and my friend Ki have spent the most time in the fields as everyone else has either spent a day in the greenhouse thinning baby plants, spent a day at the house being housekeeper (we call this day/position "Hazel,") or spent the week on landscape-crew in the garden. My arms and lower back hurt the most on the second day, blisters solidified on my hands by day four (I hope they will be calluses by the time I have to hoe again). But while the work may be monotonous and slightly painful at first, it is lovely to be outside everyday, using my body to make things grow. I look up and see Canadian geese flying low, I see the sun and the clouds shift light, direction, and shape over the mountains, I can practice focusing in on what's in front of me- staying in the moment, and I can have sometimes hilarious/sometimes informative conversations with the rest of the farm crew.
We had a few classes this week also: Botony for herbalists, an incredibly informative plant-walk, tincture-making procedures, and client constitutional intake. It is very intense having such a tight schedule on top of living in such tight quarters, but it's a shove in the right direction.
I'm beginning to think about what I want to do next, and where I want to do it.
I'll keep you posted.
Much love 'til next time
K
I spent the whole week hoeing: Echinacea the first two days, Motherwart at the end of the second day, and a field full of baby nettles at the end of the third to the end of the fourth day. I and my friend Ki have spent the most time in the fields as everyone else has either spent a day in the greenhouse thinning baby plants, spent a day at the house being housekeeper (we call this day/position "Hazel,") or spent the week on landscape-crew in the garden. My arms and lower back hurt the most on the second day, blisters solidified on my hands by day four (I hope they will be calluses by the time I have to hoe again). But while the work may be monotonous and slightly painful at first, it is lovely to be outside everyday, using my body to make things grow. I look up and see Canadian geese flying low, I see the sun and the clouds shift light, direction, and shape over the mountains, I can practice focusing in on what's in front of me- staying in the moment, and I can have sometimes hilarious/sometimes informative conversations with the rest of the farm crew.
We had a few classes this week also: Botony for herbalists, an incredibly informative plant-walk, tincture-making procedures, and client constitutional intake. It is very intense having such a tight schedule on top of living in such tight quarters, but it's a shove in the right direction.
I'm beginning to think about what I want to do next, and where I want to do it.
I'll keep you posted.
Much love 'til next time
K
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